When a Man is Tired of London. . .

. . .He is Tired of Life.

Bet you can't guess where this shot was taken from.

If you guessed the very top of St. Paul's Cathedral Dome on the Golden Gallery, 528 steps and 280 feet above the floor of the nave, you'd be correct. Here's looking at it from the ground.





And here is a diagram of my climb through the Whispering Gallery, the Stone Gallery, and all the way to the Golden Gallery.

Not bad for a guy who will be 60 in a couple of weeks and who smoked for about 40 of those years!

I was there as part of the college's day in London for the students with a visit to Christopher Wren's masterpiece St. Paul's Cathedral, built in the aftermath of the Great Fire of London in 1666. Buried under a plain slab in the crypt near the grandiose tombs of Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington, Wren's epitaph says simply, "If you would seek his monument, look around you." And a magnificent monument it is. Photos are not permitted in the cathedral proper or the Crypt, but one of the stairways which I had to negotiate on the climb from the Stone Gallery to the Golden Gallery actually goes between the outer cover of the dome--lead roofing--and an inner structure of brick which holds the actual ceiling of the dome, as you can see in diagram presented above. The outer layer is supported by huge beams such as these.

 

At @ 300 feet off the ground the view from the Golden Gallery was spectacular except for one minor detail, the London weather yesterday. For those of you who know London, I could not even see that great monstrosity The London Eye from the cathedral as you see in this photo taken looking up river in the general direction of Westminster.

The bridge on the left is Blackfriars Bridge, underneath which the chief executive of a major Italian bank, Banco Ambriosiano, Roberto Calvi was found hanging in 1982 after a scandal brought down the bank. As the bank's chief shareholder was the Vatican Bank--yes that Vatican--you can imagine that there was some sensation surrounding all of this. (Anyone remember the poster on my door touting the First Presbyterian Bank 'O Scotland?). Turning further to the left, we can see the Millennium Footbridge across the Thames to the Tate Modern Gallery, housed in the old Bankside Power Station which generated electricity from 1952 to 1981 before being decommissioned. Imagine such a creative use of an old power station in America!

Well, after the visit to St. Paul's it was off down Fleet Street for a quick pint at, all together now former English majors, The Cheshire Cheese, Dr. Johnson's favorite watering hole. It was "rebuilt" in 1667 the year after the Great Fire.

Then down to Whitehall for a brief stop at the Cenotaph, Great Britain's memorial originally to the dead of World War I and later as the center of all her Remembrance Day observances. Here are just some of the wreaths of Flanders poppies left by various groups as they marched past the monument last Sunday.

Then it was on to the Westminster Arms pub across the street from the Abbey for a quick pint before Evensong at 5 in the Quire of the Abbey. The pub was a regular hangout for Members of Parliament in the last century and even had a bell installed to alert MP's when a vote (division of the house) had been called and that they needed to drink up in a hurry and pop back over to the House.

 I first found this place some years ago when we were on our way to The Gambia and some students and I stopped in while awaiting the Evensong service at Westminster.

And after a rather adventurous bus ride back to the Manor, spent Saturday with Harold and Helen Cotterill, parents of Steven Cotterill, '88. Lovely visit at their home in Buckden.